Session 6 Hungering for More of Jesus and His … · Session 6 Hungering for More of Jesus and His Kingdom ... your heart becomes hungry. Of course, when you get hungry, you want

ONETHING 2012 – MIKE BICKLE ENCOUNTERING JESUS AND HIS TRANSFORMING POWER Transcript: 12/31/12

International House of Prayer ihopkc.org Free Teaching Library mikebickle.org

Session 6 Hungering for More of Jesus and His Kingdom (Mt. 5:6; 6:33; 7:7) Please refer to the teaching notes for this message.

THE FULLNESS OF GRACE IS AVAILABLE TO US We are going to look at “hungering for more of Jesus and His kingdom.” Hungering for righteousness is in Matthew 5:6. It is one of the Beatitudes. The premise of the New Testament is this: God will always give more grace to the person who seeks Him for more grace. The day we are born again we have the fullness of grace made available to us, but it is only made available to us in our legal position. We have to engage with the Holy Spirit to experience more grace in our daily experience. I don’t want grace to be available to me and not experience it. The cross of Jesus makes grace available, but it is our interaction with the Holy Spirit that causes us to actually experience it in our everyday life. I am going to say that again: Jesus' finished work on the cross makes the grace of God freely and fully available to us as a gift. He makes it available as a free gift because of what He did. However, it is our interaction with the Holy Spirit that causes us to actually experience it on a daily basis. WE EXPERIENCE MORE GRACE BY INTERACTING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT Now a lot of people focus on the finished work of Christ, but they don’t take the next step and interact with the Holy Spirit so that they enjoy the benefits of the grace of God in their soul, in their heart. So in James 4:6, the apostle James says that there is more grace. He doesn’t mean that there is more available, but that there is more to experience in your mind, in your emotions, and in your ministry. The way we experience more grace is by interacting with the Holy Spirit in a more consistent way. Look what it says in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us come boldly to the throne of grace.” Now the “us” he is talking to are born-again believers. He is telling born-again believers to find more grace. Again, he is talking about it being available experientially in our everyday life. So don’t confuse the freedom of grace made available, with your experience of it, because you might lie back in a passive attitude and say, “I already have the full grace of God.” It is as if the Lord says, “I want you to actually engage with the Spirit, so that you live in the benefit of it and it transforms your emotions and your mind.” THE BLESSEDNESS OF SPIRITUAL HUNGER Now Jesus taught on the blessedness of hungering to experience more. I know many born-again believers, who kick into idle gear once they have met the Lord and they spend years in passive Christianity. It is as if Jesus says, “There is a blessing, there is a grace that will increase only to the degree that you hunger for it.” The Holy Spirit gives to us on the basis of our hunger. Our hunger does not make us deserve grace, but it positions us to receive it more and more. My point is that I am troubled by the distorted grace message, which is so prevalent across the Church in the Western world and which is seeking to validate spiritual passivity under the name of grace. “We are in grace so let's live passively.” Beloved, that is not a biblical message. That is a message coming out of the carnality of our culture; it does not come from the Spirit or from the Word of God. The true biblical grace message increases our hunger to press into God; it never validates spiritual passivity. Again that message comes out of the compromise and carnality of the Western culture. It doesn’t come from the Word of

ONETHING 2012 – MIKE BICKLE Session 6 Hungering for More of Jesus and His Kingdom (Mt. 5:6; 6:33; 7:7) Transcript: 12/31/12 Page 2


God. So don’t buy into that; it is rhetoric and it will cause great damage to your spiritual life to buy into that deception. Jesus said that if you hunger, if you live the lifestyle of pressing into God as a born-again believer, you will be blessed. There are a number of dimensions of blessing, but the one I want to point out is that our spirit will be vibrant and God will progressively answer that hunger. Stay with it, not for a week, not for a summer, but stay with it for ten or twenty years; stay in the path of pressing in. I promise you, you shall be progressively satisfied in your spirit if you do not draw back and give up and give in to the passive life of compromise. “NOT THAT I HAVE ALREADY ATTAINED IT, BUT I PRESS ON” Paul was the premiere teacher on grace and Paul described his life as diligently pressing in to God. When Paul understood the grace of God, he did not draw back into an idle mode just to see what happened. He pressed into God under the power and the inspiration of the grace of God, because he understood grace more than anyone. Look at Philippians 3:12, “Not that I have already attained it…but I press on.” Here is Paul at the end of his life. He has been an apostle for decades. He says that he hasn’t yet attained it. Now he is not talking about salvation. He knows he is born again. He knows he is going to go to heaven when he dies; that is not what he is talking about. He says in effect, “I haven’t entered into the fullness of what is available to me. I am pressing in. I am going to lay hold of that for which God laid hold of me. Beloved, God lays hold of you, and when He lays hold of you, He has a destiny for you, but you have to lay hold of that destiny in order to walk in it in this age. Paul says it beautifully here. He says in effect, “I am going to press in, I am going to lay things aside, I am going to walk away from some legitimate pleasures of life, and I am going to focus, so that I can lay hold of the highest things for which God laid hold of me” (v.12, paraphrased). “HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU HAVE FOR ME?” I encourage you, ask the Holy Spirit, “How much more do You have for me?” I don’t know how He will answer you. He might not answer you in a specific way, but I assure you this, that you are in a blessed place if you are determined to receive everything God wants to give you in this age. I say it this way, “God, I am determined that I want everything You will give the human spirit in this age.” Whatever measure it is, I want it and whatever measure of grace I experience this year, I want a breakthrough to a new level next year. Whatever I walk in next year, I want to press in for a greater breakthrough. Whatever measure I experience, it is always less than the fullness, so I am going to reach for the next level. I will be grateful for the measure I have, but I press in for a greater measure. I believe that is the New Testament balance of the grace of God. It is being grateful for what you have, aware of what you have in your everyday experience, yet constantly pressing in to lay hold of that which has been fully made available because of the cross of Jesus. LACK OF HUNGER IS A SIGN OF SICKNESS Now I mentioned this yesterday: Jesus said, “Blessed are you if you have spiritual hunger” (Mt 5:6, paraphrased). Physical hunger is one of the most important signs of life. If you lack physical hunger you are on the path of sickness. Most of the people in the ICU ward—the intensive care—have no hunger at all. That is a sign of sickness. The same is true in the realm of the spirit. If we lack hunger, it doesn’t mean we are dead, but it means we are sick. It is abnormal Christianity not to hunger for the Word.



Now I am not trying to put you down and make you feel like you are horrible. What I am telling you is that you are loved by God, but if you don’t hunger for the Word, it doesn’t mean you are not real and genuine, it just means you are spiritually sick. It is not normal from God's point of view, meaning, don’t claim the grace of God and say, “Well, I am under grace. I don’t need to hunger for the Word.” Say, “I am under grace, therefore heal me from my spiritual sickness and awaken hunger, so I am a normal Christian from the New Testament point of view. Now the reason I am saying this so strongly is because I know about it. I went through this in my early days. As I mentioned yesterday, I had no hunger for the Word, but I loved to go to meetings. I could go to meetings five nights a week. I loved worship, I loved outreach, I loved fellowship, but just me, God, the Bible, and prayer, was horrifying. God loved me, He enjoyed me, but I didn’t enjoy my personal, private interaction with Him. That did not make God angry, but He wanted to heal me of that sickness, of that weakness. Stay with it until your heart becomes hungry. Of course, when you get hungry, you want to press in more and more and more. GOD WANTS TO INCREASE YOUR HUNGER I mentioned yesterday the miracle that took place. I thought I would never enjoy the Word. I thought I was destined for decades of loving Jesus, loving fellowship, loving ministry, but not liking the Bible at all. I thought I was going to have to grit my teeth for decades and endure talking to God. I was only about twenty. I thought, “Oh, this is going to be horrible. “What if I live to be eighty? That means I have got fifty or sixty years of enduring talking to God, saying, “O God, I love You. Please forgive me for not enjoying talking to You.” The Lord was not offended at me. He saw my immaturity, but here is the thing I am saying. I am not saying, “Give up, you are horrible.” I am saying, “Recognize it as a sickness of which you want to get cured. Don’t take it as normal because everyone around you is like you. If you are in the ICU ward, everybody there is sick. Don’t look at them and say, “Well, since you are here, I don’t mind being here.” It is not OK to have no spiritual hunger and no passion just because all your friends don’t. Again, don’t comfort yourself in a false way by claiming the grace of God. The grace of God wants to increase your hunger. The grace of God never validates your lack of hunger, never. That is not the grace of God. That is a lie that comes from our culture which has permeated the Church. Don’t buy it! Your inheritance is greater than that! The Lord has more for you than fifty years of being bored with God and the Bible, while you do ministry and outreach and go to worship services because the music is good and you like it. He has more for you. He wants to talk to you. He wants to exhilarate your spirit. He wants to fascinate you. Beloved, He is the most exciting Person. He has so much to show you to awaken your heart. So never ever be content with lacking spiritual hunger, no matter how popular that message is. That is a popular message but it is not a biblical message. “SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS” Now we are going to look at Matthew 5–6. Jesus is actually elaborating on the theme of spiritual hunger from Matthew 5. Here in Matthew 6, He says it in a different way. He speaks about hunger for God in verse 33. He says, “Seek first the kingdom of heaven, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then the external blessings will come” (v.33, paraphrased). It is our natural propensity to seek the circumstantial blessings first. That is natural; that is normal. It is as if Jesus says, “No, seek the kingdom first. Make it the number one and primary goal of your life to experience more of the grace of God, and to have greater liberty and righteousness in your own heart.”



Now righteousness in this verse involves more than our own personal breakthrough. God has promised us a breakthrough of righteousness in our emotions if we make it the top priority of our life. He knows we don’t have the power to manufacture righteous emotions. I can’t grit my teeth and one day wake up with righteous desires. It doesn’t work that way. It takes a breakthrough of the Holy Spirit and that breakthrough is progressive. We will get a greater breakthrough in righteousness as time goes by if we hunger for it, as we seek it, and as we interact more with the Lord, which is called prayer and the Word. Those are not the only two things, but those are the two I am highlighting right now. There will be an increase of breakthrough in our heart in time. YOU WILL NEVER GO DEEP ON THE RUN The problem with a lot of folks is that they give it a few weeks and if they don’t get the breakthrough, they draw back and quit. Don’t be denied! Refuse to live at a lesser degree than what God has made available to you. Be determined to hunger and thirst, to seek first the kingdom, and to press into the kingdom. Lay aside some pleasures and opportunities, even ones that are legitimate. You will have to lay some of them aside. There are many good things that are not sinful, but if you participate in all of them, you will not have time to pursue the breakthrough you are after in a necessary way. I’m not talking about laying aside just bad things, but I’m talking about laying aside legitimate things. I have had many opportunities in ministry in the last twenty-five years to go here and to go there, to do this and to do that, to increase my ministry, increase my network, and increase my finances. I’m not trying to make a big point about me. I am just telling you from a personal point of view, that you have to say no to many good opportunities, in order to have time to make this the primary pursuit of your heart. You can’t make it first and just put it as an appendage at the end of your day if you have a little extra time. That is not what Jesus is talking about. He is talking about this really being first. There are things you will have to turn off; there are situations you will have to turn away from—good ones. You will never grow deep on the run. You will never have a vibrant spirit on the run, by giving Jesus the last ten minutes of your day. “WHY CAN’T I GET A BREAKTHROUGH LIKE THIS?” There was a time in my young life where I sat back and I said, “Lord, I don’t know how to do this, but I am going after this.” I would read biographies of these men and women who had breakthroughs of power in their heart. They lived near to God, had breakthroughs of power in their ministry, and they affected others. I wanted a breakthrough in my heart. I didn’t want to live spiritually bored for fifty years just going from meeting to meeting hoping it would get better. I used to tell all the stories in the biographies. People would come to my Bible studies and I would tell them what the great men and women of God did in the past. I loved it, but there was a day when I was in my early twenties, that I slammed my hand down on the table and said, “Why not me? Why can’t I get a breakthrough like this?” I remember it was a startling day. It was exciting, but it was scary, because I knew that if I was going to go for it, that was the exciting part, but it would be costly. It would mean drawing back from many good things that were not in themselves sinful at all, because you will not be able to go deep in God on the run, giving God the surplus moments of your day. You will need to give Him the strength of your life to go after this. Now I am not saying you need to quit your job or quit school, but you will have to turn down a number of things that are in themselves OK to do, but they will be time investments that will hinder you from getting a breakthrough of your hunger and pressing into your own fullness of what God has promised you.



“ASK AND IT WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU” First, in Matthew 5, Jesus told us to be hungry. In Matthew 6, He is saying the same thing. He is telling us to make it the number one thing, to make it first. Now here in Matthew 7, He is giving us some practicalities. In Matthew 7:7, He is talking about interacting with the Holy Spirit in an ongoing, consistent way. He says, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened.” Then He goes on in Matthew 7:8, and says something very encouraging. He says that everyone, no matter how uneducated you are, no matter how ungifted you are, no matter what your personality type is, no matter how addicted you were to some form of perversion, no matter how entrenched you use to be in sin, everyone who stays with it, will get the breakthrough. They will receive. Everyone who keeps seeking, will find the solution if they stay with it. If they keep knocking on the door, the obstacle—the door is an obstacle, which they can’t get through—will be moved. If they stay with it and keep knocking, it will be moved. The verbs are in the continuous present. When Jesus says ask, it means keep on asking. The point is, don’t stop asking. When Jesus says seek, it means keep on seeking and don’t ever stop. When He says knock, it means the obstacle may be there but don’t take no for an answer, don’t give up in a week, don’t give up in a month, and don’t give up in a year. Keep talking to God until that door opens. SEEKING A BREAKTHROUGH FROM GOD IN YOUR LIFE Now at this point in time I’m not talking about a circumstantial situation where you want something and if you pray long enough, God will give it to you even if it is not in His will. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about interacting with the Holy Spirit, until you get a breakthrough of the Holy Spirit in your own heart. This passage is not limited to that, but it is focused on that kind of thing for sure, because it is clear that it is talking about a breakthrough from God in your life. It is as if Jesus says, “You want hunger? You want to seek the kingdom first? You don’t know how to get hungry? Ask Me, and I will increase your hunger. You don’t know how to do it? Seek and I will give you the wisdom little by little. Now I remember when I was eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old, I was desperate to know God, but I didn’t like talking to God. I liked it a little bit. Especially when I was in pain, I liked talking to Him. “Oh help, Oh help, please, please help!” I didn’t mind that, but an open Bible, me and God alone? Ugh! I remember, I would pray an hour a day, because somebody told me I had to. I would look at my clock, pray everything I could think of, and have fifty-eight minutes to go. It was torture. I would read my Bible and it was so boring to me. I began to say, “Lord, give me a breakthrough.” I didn’t know I was doing Matthew 7:7. I was asking, seeking, and knocking, because I wanted spiritual hunger, but I didn’t have hunger in that regard. Again, I enjoyed meetings, I enjoyed worship services if the music was cool, I enjoyed outreaches, and I enjoyed fellowship. I enjoyed messing around with Christians, which we called fellowship. By the way, just because you are with Christians, what you are doing doesn’t make it fellowship. You can do a lot with Christians and not enrich each other's spirit. That is not fellowship; it is just hanging out. Hanging out doesn’t mean fellowship. Fellowship means you are building each other up spiritually in some way. It doesn’t have to be a Bible study, that is not what I am saying, but hanging out is not the same thing as fellowship. They can be mixed, but they don’t always mix and often they don’t. “LORD, CONSUME ME WITH YOUR ZEAL” Now I remember I would ask the Lord. I prayed this one prayer that I stumbled into in John 2:17, where I read that Jesus was consumed with zeal. He was consumed with zeal for the Father’s house. So I remember writing



that on my prayer list when I was probably eighteen or nineteen—something like that. I prayed that almost every day for twenty-five years. I said, “Lord, consume me with zeal”—John 2:17. What I was doing was actually Matthew 7:7, because Jesus said, “Ask, keep on asking, knock, keep on knocking, seek, keep on seeking” (v.7, paraphrased). In other words, “Persevere in the dialogue with Me and I will give you a breakthrough in your heart if you stay with it.” You want hunger? You want to seek first the kingdom? You need the Holy Spirit's help to have a desire for this and to stay with it over the years to get the breakthrough. Jesus' death on the cross made it available for us, but it is only in our interaction with the Holy Spirit that we are going to actually experience it in this age. WE NEED TO PERSEVERE IN ASKING, SEEKING, AND KNOCKING Again, I said this earlier, some people look at Jesus' work on the cross, they put all their attention there, and they don’t know John 16:14. The Holy Spirit is the One who applies the benefits of Jesus to our heart. We have to interact with Him, we have to talk with Him, and we have to be in a posture of seeking, because it is the Spirit who gives us the release of the benefits in our everyday life experience. There is a casual asking, when we put very little effort into it, because it is something that we don’t value, but if we prize something highly, we will search for it with all our heart as if for hidden treasure. This means if we want a breakthrough of intimacy in our heart, hunger for the Word, greater understanding of the Word, love for righteousness, feeling God's presence, the ability to stay steady and focused on the Lord—all those things take the supernatural help of the Spirit. He only gives them to us if we hunger for them and we talk to Him about them. It is not enough to occasionally claim them. It is as if the Holy Spirit says, “I will give them to you as you interact with Me and as you talk with Me about them.” When we search for them with all of our heart, we will get a breakthrough in time. We need to persevere, to stay with the dialogue, and to take the time to actually ask, seek, and knock. Interact with the Spirit. This is Holy Spirit interaction that Jesus is talking about. This is not earning a breakthrough, but it is positioning ourselves to receive the breakthrough. It is called perseverance. It is called sticking with it and refusing to be denied. It is positioning ourselves in a dialogue with the Spirit, so that we receive the fullness of what Jesus died to give us freely. Paul called us and all the saints to pray with all perseverance. Perseverance or consistency in this asking, seeking, and knocking, is a New Testament principle of the grace of God. Again some people say that if you are under grace you don’t need perseverance. Well, Paul was the ultimate grace teacher and he said, “Persevere in your prayer life, stay with it, stay with it, stay with it, press in, press in, press in” (Eph. 6:18, paraphrased).That was Paul's testimony. JESUS SPEAKS ABOUT TWO DIFFERENT RESPONSES TO HIS TEACHING Now Jesus is going to tell us about two types of responses. It is going to get a little intense here in Matthew 7:1-27. We are going to spend more time on this in the second session. Here in Matthew 7:13-27, Jesus is contrasting two types of responses. He has given the Sermon on the Mount, and now He is giving two types of responses of people who profess loyalty to Him. It is as if He says, “I am giving you the teaching very clearly and now I want you to be warned.” In Matthew 7:13-27, He says that people, who profess to be loyal to Him, will respond in two totally different ways to what He just taught. That is what I have been saying in this conference. The popular approach in the Body of Christ is the wrong approach. Jesus is comparing two groups



of people who both profess to be loyal to His Word. That is the context of Matthew 7:13-27. He says in verse 13, “Enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction.” We are going to find out in Matthew 7:21-22, that He is actually talking to people who profess to be loyal to His name. He is talking to people that believe themselves to be born-again believers. I will talk about this in the next session. He is not comparing Christianity to world religions right now. He is comparing people who say they are Christians to other people who also say they are Christians, and He says that to ask, seek, and knock, is the normal way of the Christian life. The narrow road is the group that stays with it and they press into God. The broad road is the people who ignore these teachings and they think everything is OK in their spiritual life. We are going to find out in Matthew 7:21-22, that on the last day when they talk to Him face to face and say, “Lord, Lord, I loved You, I did miracles,” He is going to say, “I don’t even know you. You walked the broad way. You didn’t take the narrow way, you didn’t do the Beatitudes, and you didn’t do the Sermon on the Mount. You talked about Me, but you never pressed in to know Me. We didn’t even have a relationship. You wanted forgiveness and blessed circumstances. I wanted relationship with you. You didn’t want relationship. You wanted a free pass and you wanted Me to help you with your money and your honor. I wanted to connect with your heart, but you weren’t interested in My heart. You were interested in your personal comfort, your personal honor, in your finances, and in improving your ministry” (v. 21-22, paraphrased). That is what He will tell them. He will say, “I never knew you,” meaning, we never connected at the heart level in a deep way and that is really what I wanted, because that is what salvation is. TRUE LIBERTY Salvation is not getting our passport stamped so that we have the assurance of forgiveness and can cast Jesus off for the next twenty years, while having the assurance that we are going to heaven. Liberty is not liberty from Jesus' leadership. Liberty is liberty from defilement and darkness and the things of darkness that defile our heart. That is the liberty we want. There are a lot of people who want liberty from Jesus' restraints. They want liberty from Jesus, but they want His forgiveness. That is not biblical Christianity. Jesus is not talking about a high Christianity and a low Christianity. You are going to find in a moment that He is talking about a false Christianity and a true Christianity. He is not talking about intense people and everyone else. He is talking about the genuine believers and the false believers, but the false believers thought all their life that they were genuine. THE NARROW ROAD Jesus breaks it down. It is as if He says, “It is really easy. Go after the narrow road! You want to interact with My heart and the highest priority of your life is you and Me and what we mean to each other. I am not just an insurance program for you. I am the desire and the goal of your life, because you are the passion of My heart and I want to be the passion of Your heart. I don’t want to just forgive you and bless you and see you in eternity. That is not salvation” (v.13, paraphrased). So He goes on, and says here in Matthew 7:14 that the narrow road—which, by the way, is the only road of New Testament Christianity and the only road to salvation that is being offered—He says that it is a difficult road, but it leads to life. It leads to a dynamic interaction with the God of Genesis 1. Can you imagine that the God of Genesis 1 wants deep interaction with me? Why does He want interaction with me? That is a privilege beyond anything I can imagine.



Jesus says that the road that leads to life is a narrow road. He says that only a few find it. Now we know it is millions, but there are hundreds of millions of believers who are not among the few. Hundreds of millions professed to know Him and millions know Him. I don’t know the number, but it is not nearly the number of people who think they know Him. So when He says “few,” He means the percentage is smaller than you might think. THE BROAD ROAD OF TOLERANCE AND PERMISSIVENESS Now the broad road is popular. Many go down the broad road. The reason it is popular is that it has very few restrictions. It is broad: there is room for all kinds of opinions and lifestyles. If you are on the broad road, you can carry all the luggage you want. You can have a little immorality, a little drunkenness, and a little slander. You can live with evil without repenting of it. You can do all kinds of things, say, “Glory to God, I am covered,” and not repent of it. Now if we repent of our sins, we are covered and even if we fall again, we repent of them again, but the issue is that we are sincerely warring against our sins and trying to get free of them. We are not trying to fight Bible verses to get free of obedience. We are trying to find Bible verses to help free us from things in which we are stumbling. We are sincere believers if that is our heart cry. Now the broad road it is a road of tolerance. It is the road of permissiveness “in the grace of God.” The broad-road people use Bible verses. The preachers of the broad road use the Bible all the time. They emphasize promises of blessing and they dismiss the requirements. They don’t talk about repentance, they don’t talk about denying the flesh, and they don’t talk about spiritual disciplines. They set them aside. They may not all openly say don’t worry about the requirements, but they never ever mention them. Some of them openly put them down saying that in the grace of God you don’t need to do them. They dismiss Jesus’ requirements for the relationship. What I mean by requirements is to respond to love in an appropriate way. When He offers His love, He wants relationship. He doesn’t just want to stamp our passport to go to heaven. He wants an appropriate response of love back from us. Now our love is weak, our love is frail, we are immature, we fail in our response, but it pains us when we fail and it is not OK with us when we fail, and that is the genuine response of love He wants from us. THE FALSE GRACE MESSAGE Well, people on the broad road emphasize His blessings, but dismiss His requirements, and they dismiss His warnings. They never mention His warnings or His requirements. They only say, “God is happy, you are doing great, life is going to get better, He is going to give you more comfort, more honor, more friends, more money, glory to God!” And the whole auditorium screams and hollers and claps and that is the end of the story. Now the truth is that He does give those things, but He doesn’t give them separated from the other part of the story. He gives those things in the context of the pursuit of a whole-hearted relationship of love. It is the relationship He wants. These things flow out of a relationship. They are not the point themselves, but they are the fruits that come out of our relationship with Jesus. Now few people choose the narrow way. Again, millions world wide choose the narrow way, but hundreds of millions don’t. It is a difficult way. Now in what sense is it difficult? Our fleshly desires must be denied. If you are going to preach the grace message of Jesus, the New Testament grace message, you must talk about denying ourselves of fleshly lust. A grace message that is absent of that biblical point which Jesus emphasized, is a false grace message. I want to make that crystal clear to you. To give only one part of the message is to give a distorted message and it gives God's people confidence to continue in compromise and the destruction will be



more terrible than they can ever imagine when they stand face to face with Jesus. We mentioned this the other day. “STRIVE TO ENTER THROUGH THE NARROW GATE” Jesus said, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate” (Lk. 13:24). Now “strive” means put effort into it. We don’t strive to earn forgiveness; we don’t at all. That is a false doctrine. However, we do strive to position ourselves to experience more. Again we have to deny certain lusts, we have to turn down certain opportunities, we have to say no to certain things, and that takes effort. That is the narrow gate and only a few find it. It is not a popular message, but it is the only biblical message of grace. Striving has two totally different meanings in the New Testament. We don’t strive to earn God's love, everybody knows that. Maybe some people who are new believers don’t know this and they think that praying and fasting earns them something. No, you don’t pray and fast to motivate God to love you. You pray and fast, because He loves you freely in your brokenness and you position yourself to receive more by praying and fasting, because you want to feel and experience more. You don’t earn anything. We strive in the sense of putting effort into the relationship, just like you would put effort into a relationship with somebody you love. If a husband or a wife or good friends or family members put no effort into a relationship, their love could be questioned. Striving in the biblical sense is an expression of love. I care enough to love. I am going to seek, I am going to knock, I am going to ask in my relationship with the Holy Spirit, because I want a breakthrough in my heart, because I want to hunger for righteousness. I want zeal to consume me, I want to have the kingdom first, I want righteousness to break forth in my heart and it isn’t and I am troubled, so I am going to seek and knock. I am going to turn over every stone until I get a breakthrough. Beloved, this is what He is talking about. It is called the narrow road. It will lead to life, it will lead to a vibrant heart, it will lead to a dynamic encounter with the Lord, it will lead to eternal rewards, and it will lead to a full relationship with Jesus, which is the big point in this age and in the age to come. STRIVING IS THE FRUIT OF LOVE Now there is wrong striving. I have said it five times and I will say it six; we never strive to earn God's love. Let's settle that. However, in our refusal to strive in the wrong sense, let's not refuse to strive in the right sense. Remember the old saying: don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. When you throw out the dirty bath water, make sure the baby is not in it. Keep the baby and throw out the water. If you want to reject striving to earn the love of God, that is biblical and necessary, but don’t throw out striving in the sense of putting effort into the relationship while you are dialoguing with the Holy Spirit, asking, seeking, knocking, pressing in, and saying, “Lord, I want to know more, I want to understand, I want a greater breakthrough, I hunger for more.” Beloved, that is the glory of a man or a woman who loves Christ Jesus. That is the fruit of love. Now I have examples here of biblical striving—striving that Paul and others emphasized. The Bible says we are to be diligent to enter into rest. The NIV says we are to make every effort; it is the same idea. We exert effort to enter into rest. In what sense do we exert effort to enter rest? We bring our un-renewed mind into agreement with God by reading the Word and by filling our mind with the things of God. We put that effort into it and we enjoy rest when we understand and agree with God by filling our mind with the things of God.



TAKE THE EASY YOKE OF JESUS Now I mentioned this the other day, but I want to say it again. Some people say, “I don’t get it. Do we strive to enter the narrow road, which is hard or do we take on the yoke of Jesus which is easy—Matthew 11:29? Is the narrow road hard and is the yoke easy? I mean, which is it: hard or easy? You can be sure Jesus did not contradict Himself. The narrow road is hard on our flesh in terms of denying fleshly desires, putting down our propensity to laziness and distraction, and to gird our strength to press into God. That is hard. Taking on the yoke of Jesus is not talking about receiving His forgiveness. That is not what He is talking about here. Taking the yoke of Jesus is to take on meekness and lowliness of heart, which is the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle. It is as if Jesus said, “Put on My yoke of the Sermon-on-the-Mount lifestyle. It will be easy on your heart. It is hard on your flesh, but your spirit will be liberated, because now you are not striving for all the agendas and all the negative emotions related to resisting the lifestyle of the Sermon on the Mount.” He says in effect, “Settle it, die to the things you need to die to, take My yoke upon you, live the Sermon-on-the-Mount lifestyle, and your heart will be liberated.” So it is hard on our flesh, but it will eventually be easy on the heart. The hard yoke is the yoke that is so normal to us and which leaves us with anxiety, turmoil, fear, competition, jealousy, anger, and bitterness. Beloved, that is the hard yoke. It is as if Jesus says, “Why don’t you just lay that aside and determine to be a radical, Beatitudes Christian—all eight Beatitudes? Throw yourself into the Sermon on the Mount and you will find liberty in your heart! You will find it easy at the heart level, though it may be difficult on the outside.” Amen, I am going to end with that. We will a short break and we are going to come back and continue to develop this subject a little more. Let's stand. We will take ten minutes and we then are going to do the next session right after this one.

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Session 6 Hungering for More of Jesus and His … · Session 6 Hungering for More of Jesus and His Kingdom ... your heart becomes hungry. Of course, when you get hungry, you want